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Monday, April 29, 2019

THE SUNDOWNERS (1950)

Not to be confused with Fred Zinnemann’s fine 1960 Australia-set family drama (see below), this little indie Western ought to be better. Connected to John Ford’s THE SEARCHERS/’56 via writer Alan LeMay and lenser Winton C. Hoch, you can certainly see the possibilities in its cattle poaching plotline, but director George Templeton doesn’t pull much out of the situations. As brothers bent on stopping a gang of local cattle rustlers, Robert Sterling & debuting John Barrymore, Jr. (Drew’s pop!) don’t exactly fill the screen with personality. But they completely disappear once Robert Preston shows up as The Sociopath Who Came To Dinner. He’s got a shared past with the boys and is eager to steal back any losses in the herd . . . and then some. Shooting to kill when given half a chance, romancing Sterling’s gal, rubbing his victims’ noses in defeat and singing a little victory song to celebrate, he’s a show & a half all on his lonesome. If only someone would have stepped up to meet him halfway, Preston might not have slipped off the big screen and over to tv & the B’way stage for much of the ‘50s. Then again, that’s how he snared the role of a lifetime when an upstart musical no one gave much of a chance to came along needing a semi-forgotten leading man to play MUSIC MAN Harold Hill. And there’s a taste of that conman's showmanship on display here.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: In an early appearance, a young, rail-thin Jack Elam makes an impression as a Preston victim.

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